Extraordinary service to customers. Kindness to employees. Long hours of charitable work. Cheerfulness. Selflessness.

These are the elements The Register’s readers pointed out when asked to nominate a business owner who lives the holiday spirit all year long. For the 18th consecutive year of the It’s Your Business Holiday Spirit Award, readers once again supplied abundant examples of generosity that make good business but rarely make headlines.

Our judges had a tough time choosing from this year’s nominations, but in close balloting, these three finalists for the 2005 Holiday Spirit Award emerged.

BUDDY HAMBLIN BUDDY’S AUTO REPAIR GARDEN GROVE

After years of running service stations, Hamblin opened his auto repair shop in 1994 to have more time to spend with the youngest of his three sons.

“I spent too much time at work and missed out on my older sons’ growing up,” he says.

An anonymous customer wrote of Hamblin: “His old-fashioned way includes picking up his clients’ cars and delivering them after being repaired and washed. He drives customers to their appointments while their cars are worked on to avoid inconveniences.”

A few years ago, one customer picked up her car on her way to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach for chemotherapy treatments. Hamblin dropped what he was doing, drove her to the hospital, waited until the treatment was done and drove her home.

Another customer was on the way to visit relatives in Santa Barbara when his car broke down. Hamblin loaned his own new car for the trip.

The walls of the “super-clean and cozy waiting room” are lined with plaques and testimonies to Hamblin’s sponsorship of youth sports teams, civic participation and generosity.

“I’m a blessed person. If I can help out, I will,” Hamblin says. “Auto repair is an industry that lacks integrity. I do my part to change that image.

“You have to make money, but making money is not what’s important. It’s what you do with it.”

ADELE LUX ADELE’S CAFÉ SAN CLEMENTE

Born and raised in San Clemente, Adele Lux was a waitress for several restaurants in town for more than 30 years. In 1998, she bought her own restaurant and renamed it Adele’s Café.

“I only had $2,000 in the bank, but I had a customer base from waitressing all those years,” she says.

Part-time cook Guy Anderson says of Lux: “I have worked in restaurants and caterers for more than 30 years myself, and I have never worked for a kinder and (more) generous person than Adele. When one of us is wronged or hurt in some way, she is always an encouraging soul. Adele is a genuine, smart businesswoman who knows how to have fun in a very difficult profession.”

When a busboy needed a car to drive to San Francisco to visit family, Lux rented a vehicle for him.

When a waitress needed eye surgery, Lux paid for it and accepted repayment from tip money over time.

When homeless people have come to the door, Lux has given them coffee and a hot meal.

Each year, Lux gives her employees a Christmas party and bonus. This year they rode go-carts in Irvine.

“I don’t have to work; I get to come to work every day,” says Lux, who arrives at the restaurant at 5 a.m. “We are a team. It’s an honor and privilege to work here.”

BRYAN BOWERS BOWERS TECHNOLOGY RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA

Bryan Bowers has been repairing and maintaining computers for small and mid-sized companies for 13 years. He temporarily closed his business in early September to help the Louisiana relief effort after Hurricane Katrina with three others from Calvary Chapel of Rancho Santa Margarita.

“I felt it was something I had to do,” Bowers says. “It’s something my dad instilled in me. The following Bible passage sums it up nicely: ‘Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.’ 1John 3:18.”

In the first 11 months of this year, Bowers worked more than 700 hours with the Boy Scouts. With his son, he ran a pancake breakfast fundraiser in January for victims of the tsunami in southeast Asia, founded a new Scout troop at Stonecreek Christian Church in February, cleared brush at Oso Lake Scout camp in September, collected and sorted clothing donations for Gulf Coast hurricane victims in October and built houses for impoverished families in Tijuana, Mexico, in November.

In past years, Bowers has organized Christmas caroling for the elderly at Lake Forest Retirement Home and helped people who lost their homes in the San Diego County wildfires.